soft 50d?

[Ekir]

Hi, I have a Canon 50d, and after a few omments about 'soft' focus on a few photos I've done, I'm wondering, is it the camera, lens or operater?
I make sure the focus point is where I want it, work in manual, but use auto focus most of the time with my children.
I generally set to 125th/sec and about f4.5. f11.
I use a Canon 50D body, 28-80mm zoom lensand a tamron 28-80 zoom lens.
I'm putting a 50mm Canon f1.4 on laybye soon, so I hope it is just the tamron lens..lot cheaper to buy a new lens then a whole new body!

Plese any thoughts on this?

[BigFuzzy]

Show us some of the images that others have said are soft with the exif data and someone here is very likely to be able to opine on whether it's you or the kit.

I'm always inclined to think it's the operator as I had no problem getting pin-sharp images with my 20d and a cheap sigma 28-70 lens if the conditions are right.

So.. without having images to look at it'd be hard to tell you. I'd assume that in ideal conditions, (ie good light, good camera holding technique, good settings) you should definitely not have a problem shooting sharp images. But again, it's just conjecture.

[Thunder_o_b]

Could be a front/back focus issue. You can micro adjust the focus in the 50D

[inkista]

I'm with BigFuzzy. While it could be faulty equipment, with a newcomer to dSLR photographer, the more likely explanation is one of technique. There are a lot of factors that go into sharpness, it's not just one thing, so it can sometimes be hard to find what the issue is. I'd recommend reading this DPS article on getting sharp photos.

Generally, it's four things:

Shutter speed. A lot of people mistake motion blur for softness or misfocus. But motion registers in a shot with slower shutter speeds. Making sure the speed is fast enough to eliminate camera-shake blur, as well as subject motion blur is key. Also, the longer the lens you use, the faster your shutter speed needs to be. Handholding technique also counts, here. If your shutter speeds are very low, consider using a sturdy tripod.

Aperture. Shooting wide open all the time is often using your lens at its weakest point. Shooting with a very small aperture (f/22 and smaller) may lose you a bit of sharpness to diffraction effect. A stop or two down from wide open is generally a happy place to be on a lens, in terms of sharpness. And a deeper depth of field will make focusing a little less critical.

Autofocus. The autofocus system may or may not be choosing the right thing to focus on. Taking control of it and learning how to tell it what you want to focus on, either by selecting a specific AF spot, or by using the center spot and doing a half-press and recompose can often be more accurate than simply relying on the AF system to do the work for you.

Pixel-peeping. Judging sharpness by magnifying an image to 100% is being hypercritical in a lot of cases. Unless you're going to be making really BIG prints, it's probably best to look at the image at your delivery size and THEN judge the sharpness of the image overall. Very few lenses are going to stand up to 100% magnification scrutiny and still be razor sharp.

[Ekir]

Originally Posted by BigFuzzy

Show us some of the images that others have said are soft with the exif data and someone here is very likely to be able to opine on whether it's you or the kit.

I'm always inclined to think it's the operator as I had no problem getting pin-sharp images with my 20d and a cheap sigma 28-70 lens if the conditions are right.

So.. without having images to look at it'd be hard to tell you. I'd assume that in ideal conditions, (ie good light, good camera holding technique, good settings) you should definitely not have a problem shooting sharp images. But again, it's just conjecture.

Hey BigFuzzy, thanks for getting back to me!
Here is an image
zach and candice picture by fivelittleskorpils - Photobucket

I couldn't figure out how to directly copy the exif datat, but wrote it out here:

Dimensions 4752x3168
Colour space: RGB
Focal lengh: 63
F: 11
Esp time : 1/250th

[Ekir]

Originally Posted by inkista

I'm with BigFuzzy. While it could be faulty equipment, with a newcomer to dSLR photographer, the more likely explanation is one of technique. There are a lot of factors that go into sharpness, it's not just one thing, so it can sometimes be hard to find what the issue is. I'd recommend reading this DPS article on getting sharp photos.

Generally, it's four things:

Shutter speed. A lot of people mistake motion blur for softness or misfocus. But motion registers in a shot with slower shutter speeds. Making sure the speed is fast enough to eliminate camera-shake blur, as well as subject motion blur is key. Also, the longer the lens you use, the faster your shutter speed needs to be. Handholding technique also counts, here. If your shutter speeds are very low, consider using a sturdy tripod.

Aperture. Shooting wide open all the time is often using your lens at its weakest point. Shooting with a very small aperture (f/22 and smaller) may lose you a bit of sharpness to diffraction effect. A stop or two down from wide open is generally a happy place to be on a lens, in terms of sharpness. And a deeper depth of field will make focusing a little less critical.

Autofocus. The autofocus system may or may not be choosing the right thing to focus on. Taking control of it and learning how to tell it what you want to focus on, either by selecting a specific AF spot, or by using the center spot and doing a half-press and recompose can often be more accurate than simply relying on the AF system to do the work for you.

Pixel-peeping. Judging sharpness by magnifying an image to 100% is being hypercritical in a lot of cases. Unless you're going to be making really BIG prints, it's probably best to look at the image at your delivery size and THEN judge the sharpness of the image overall. Very few lenses are going to stand up to 100% magnification scrutiny and still be razor sharp.

Hi Inkista, thanks for the response. Yeah I do all that, selective focus on thier eyes etc, and the half press recompose
But my problem may be with the F numbers s you said, as I generally shoot people on f5.6 or landscapes on f32 or f40 if it allows me to!
Maybe I should find a happy medium.
I am qualified ten years ago, but we trained of course with film SLR's and all I've learnt on digital SLRs has been self taught.
any advice is welcomed, I am here to improve!

[RichardTaylor]

Are you using a filter on the lens?
If yes then see how it goes with the filter removed.

Was the original shot in RAW?
If so was any sharpening applied during PPing?

[Ekir]

Hey Richard, there was no filter on the lens, and yup I shot in RAW.
The only pp was to desaturat a bit, and darken exposure
Cheers,, Louise

[inkista]

Originally Posted by Ekir

Hi Inkista, thanks for the response. Yeah I do all that, selective focus on [their] eyes etc, and the half press recompose

Looking at it, the most likely explanation to me is misfocus. I'd definitely check the autofocus microadjust calibration on the lens and your diopter adjustment if you're sure this all looked crystal clear in the viewfinder. And if you rarely compose with a centered subject, I'd say you may want to think about switching to selecting the AF point you want with the joystick.

The half-press locks the focus at the distance you want, but when you recompose, you may have changed that distance.

What's weird to me in this shot is how far off the focus point looks. It almost looks like the grass in the foreground is where the focus fell. And that's not a minor AF error caused by recomposing. And the DoF just looks wrong to me for f/11, unless you were focusing at a very close distance. Maybe stopping down to f/16 would help, but I think for some reason the camera's just focused in the wrong place, here. You might want to try opening up the image in ZoomBrowser and seeing which AF point was used.

Do you have ALL the AF points in the matrix active? Or just the center one?

Another possibility, if you're working with a tripod would be to try using liveview and 10x magnification and manually focusing.

[Ekir]

Hey Inkista, I check the points just after i take the photos to make sure that they are on the right spot, and yup, I do the manual AF point selection sometimes too, most of the time I focus in the center, then swing the camera to the left or right (without moving myself) and take the shot.
The diopter is adgusted to all the dots clear for me, but my vision is just on the 75% vision ie, I just don't need glasses!
Would this affect the way I see sharpness, ie what I see as sharp, most people would see those diopter dots as missfocussed?
Will have to ask my hubby to check them, if they are sharp to him.
How d you do the autofocus microadjust on the lens???

Originally Posted by inkista

Looking at it, the most likely explanation to me is misfocus. I'd definitely check the autofocus microadjust calibration on the lens and your diopter adjustment if you're sure this all looked crystal clear in the viewfinder. And if you rarely compose with a centered subject, I'd say you may want to think about switching to selecting the AF point you want with the joystick.

The half-press locks the focus at the distance you want, but when you recompose, you may have changed that distance.

What's weird to me in this shot is how far off the focus point looks. It almost looks like the grass in the foreground is where the focus fell. And that's not a minor AF error caused by recomposing. And the DoF just looks wrong to me for f/11, unless you were focusing at a very close distance. Maybe stopping down to f/16 would help, but I think for some reason the camera's just focused in the wrong place, here. You might want to try opening up the image in ZoomBrowser and seeing which AF point was used.

Do you have ALL the AF points in the matrix active? Or just the center one?

Another possibility, if you're working with a tripod would be to try using liveview and 10x magnification and manually focusing.